The Miserable
by Sad-Blue-Eyed-Angel 2010
Summary: A small glimpse into how Alan and Tin-Tin treat each other in their relation/friendship. I'm posting this story on a whim and I realize it's short. Oneshot for now. Sick Alan. Please no flames.
1. Les Miserable

The thunderous thumps of running feet roared down the hallway as the klaxon blared loudly, rousing all the occupants of Tracy Island from sleep. Cerulean eyes opened slowly before closing in a groggy blink. Reaching out a hand, Alan Tracy tapped the base of his lamp on his nightstand, illuminating the room. The light burned intensely in his retinas, but Alan ignored the sharp burn. Waving a hand, Alan located the box of tissues he'd placed beside his bed.

"Ugh…I'm so stubbed up." Alan sat up before blowing his nose into the handful of tissues. "My head."

Alan listened as he heard a thunderous roar take off in the night sky as Thunderbird One launched off to a rescue. Groaning to himself, Alan wrapped his blankets around his form before stepping into his slippers and grabbing his box of tissues. Shuffling out of his bedroom, Alan made his way down past Command and Control where Brains was running everything. Jeff, Scott, Virgil and Gordon were nowhere to be seen and that made Alan sigh. He'd give anything to go on a rescue with his family, but he was currently home from school with an upper respiratory and sinus infection.

Thanks to midterms Alan had lost a fare few hours of sleep, resulting in his weakened immune system. He'd contracted the infection three weeks ago, but in truth his family hadn't known about it until a week ago. Alan had hidden the fact that he wasn't feeling well until he'd fallen asleep in his astrology class. His instructor checked Alan for a fever upon waking the boy and he'd found that his student was not only warm, he was blazing hot. Alan had been sent to the nurse's office to rest until the school could get ahold of either his dad or brothers.

Lady Penelope and Parker had been the ones to come retrieve Alan from school. Lady Penelope had forced Alan to lie down and sleep, pillowing Alan's head against her lap. She'd run her fingers through the fifteen year old's hair, easing him off to sleep. When they'd arrived on the island, Kyrano had gently picked up the sickly boy, carrying him on his back up to his bedroom. Onaha had taken the liberty of changing Alan into his pajamas before she'd tucked the boy in.

When Alan's family had returned to the island after a rescue, they'd found Lady Penelope seated on the edge of Alan's bed gently dabbing at his sweaty forehead with a damp cloth. Virgil retrieved a hypodermic needle from the infirmary and gave Alan a shot of antibiotics to help him fight the infection.

That was a week ago and Alan still wasn't getting any better. In fact he seemed to be getting worse. His nose was raw from him constantly blowing it, he'd swear that he could taste blood each time he coughed, his appetite was virtually gone, not being able to taste tended to do that from time to time, his fever remained steady at 102.6 and no amount of sleep he got seemed to get rid of his fatigue.

Alan reached out with a shaky hand and opened the door to the movie room. If he couldn't sleep, might as well watch a movie…right? Yeah, that's what he thought too. Alan closed the door and turned the light on to a dim setting and moved to the couch. His head was pounding, he was tired, his nose was so stuffed up and he felt miserable. Alan retrieved the remote and propped up against the pillows that lay on the couch.

Alan contemplated putting on one of the boring documentaries that Gordon recorded on amphibians, but he couldn't gather the wherewithal to actually press play. As tired as he was, he didn't want to be caught watching a documentary, and it'd earn him teasing like you would not believe.

"Hey, feel up to some company?" Alan raised his head from the pillows to peer behind him at the voice that sounded in the room. Tin-Tin stood a couple paces behind the couch. "How are you feeling?"

"Don't ask…I feel miserable and I want to go to sleep." Alan mumbled out…his voice changed the syllables of his words and if it wasn't for how puny his voice sounded it might have been comical. "What are you doing ub?"

"I couldn't sleep…so I figured I'd come down here to watch a movie in hopes of making myself fall asleep." Tin-Tin moved around the couch to sit. She grabbed Alan's legs and lifted them up before sitting where his feet had been and laying his legs across her lap. "Feel up to humoring me?"

"What do you want to watch?" Alan laid his head back against the pillows, settling in and feeling his eyes droop slightly.

"To be honest, I've been wanting to watch Les Miserable, but I don't want to make any of your brothers uncomfortable with a musical." Alan would swear that Tin-Tin blushed slightly, but he couldn't tell in the mild darkness of the room.

"So how is that different with me?" Alan grinned slightly in question.

"For one…you are already uncomfortable…two you'll probably fall asleep during the first five minutes so it'll be like killing two birds with one stone." Alan shook his head in bemusement at Tin-Tin's logic, but he motioned for her to go ahead and put the film on.

"I'll give you that…go ahead. I'll deal." Alan pulled his blanket's around his frame and smiled his thanks when Tin-Tin tucked the loose edge of blankets around his feet and consequently around herself too.

Tin-Tin went on ahead and found the movie she wanted to watch and hit play. Alan settled in, ready and hoping that the movie put him to sleep, but as the opening credits began…Alan found himself strangely drawn in. He wasn't one for musicals, but this had caught his interest. He blamed his illness for making him find interest in a movie he'd never have watched even if he went on a movie date with a girl.

There were parts in the movie that Alan was embarrassed to admit, brought a tear to his eye. He and Tin-Tin both utilized his box of tissues, Tin-Tin because she was openly crying and had taken to dabbing at the tear streaks on her face, Alan partly because he was crying, partly because his cold made it next to impossible for him to breath like a normal human being.

When the film ended Alan and Tin-Tin looked at each other with glistening eyes. "What happened in this room, stays in this room." Alan stated with a glower in Tin-Tin's direction.

"My lips are sealed." Tin-Tin made a locking gesture over her mouth before throwing away the key. "Feeling sleepy yet?"

"Yeah, but I'm too comfortable to head back to my bed…lord knows how much that's driving me crazy being restricted to my bed. I think I'll stay here." Alan wiggled slightly, settling into the couch cushions. His eyelids became incredibly heavy and he no longer tried to keep them open.

Tin-Tin still wasn't quite tired yet, so she'd selected another movie from the queue to put on.

… … … … … …

Virgil strolled through the hallway intent on swinging past his little brother's room to check on him. His fever had remained high all day and Virgil wanted to make sure that it hadn't gotten any higher. Opening the door to Alan's bedroom, Virgil poked his head in to look in on his brother and frowned when he found not only the bed empty but it devoid of the thick blankets that Scott had practically swaddled the teen in.

"Sprout?" Virgil stepped fully into Alan's bedroom and checked the en suite bathroom for his brother. He'd begun coughing up the phlegm that settled in his lungs and it had a habit of making the youngest Tracy retch.

When Virgil failed to find Alan in the bathroom or his bedroom the medic went off in search of his older and younger brothers to see if either of them had even the slightest idea had as to Alan's whereabouts.

The medic meandered down the hall way in search of the youngest Tracy and as he wandered past the movie room he paused when he heard noise coming from inside. Backtracking, Virgil ventured to open the door to the movie room and he poked his head in. He saw a head, but the head had long dark hair and it was slumped over. Tiptoeing into the room, Virgil walked up to the couch to discover Tin-Tin, sleeping with her head propped up against her fist and Alan…bundled up under his blankets. Both teens were sound asleep.

Smiling serenely, Virgil grabbed the remote and turned off the movie that was half way over. Immediately the room was plunged into total silence and Virgil found himself holding his breath. Ever so slowly, the medic gripped Tin-Tin's head and eased it off her fist and back to lie against the arm of the couch. Slipping a small throw pillow beneath her head, Virgil checked on Alan since he was in the room. The boy was still quite feverish, but there wasn't much Virgil could do until his body actually decided to fight back against the infection.

"Hey, Virgil…have you see…" Scott trailed off himself when Virgil held a finger up to his lips. Peering over the edge of the couch, Scott got a sappy sort of grin on his face as he watched Alan sleep. The younger blonde, though not well yet was actually sleeping peacefully. The two older brothers chuckled quietly when they noticed one of Alan's toes poking out from beneath the pile of blankets spread across Tin-Tin's lap.

"Hang on, I'll be right back." Scott murmured quietly before slipping out of the room. Virgil continued to settle Alan and Tin-Tin in on the couch before looking up at seeing the door swing open again. This time it was Scott followed by Gordon and their father. Scott walked up to Virgil and handed him a pair of thick socks to place on the youngest Tracy's feet.

"How's he doing?" Jeff crouched down near the couch to whisper to Virgil who was in the process of slipping the thick material over his youngest brother's feet.

"A little better, but he's still quite warm." Virgil stood when he'd finished his task. "Come, let's let them be, I'd hate to wake Al when he's finally gotten to sleep."

Virgil ushered his family out of the room and closed the door quietly. Stopping short just outside the room, Virgil smiled softly. His baby brother no matter how old he got, was still just as cute asleep as he was when he was just a small babe in arms. When he was asleep, the stress lines that showed on his face eased away in order to give the kid the sleep he needed to recover from this illness that struck him down.

Meanwhile just inside the movie room, Tin-Tin raised her head slightly; having awoken after sensing the presences of others in the room with her and Alan. Turning her head slightly, Tin-Tin smiled before leaning over and placing the most gentlest of kisses on Alan's fevered cheeks. Snuggling down under the blankets that she shared with Alan, Tin-Tin returned to her slumber.


	2. Walking on Clouds

Alan lay in bed staring with a wrinkled nose at the soup and crackers that Tin-Tin had brought up to him for lunch. The soup was his least favorite kind of soup, but he knew that his grandmother had made it with a "dash of love" as Tin-Tin so quaintly put it and he didn't have the heart to turn it away. Swallowing, Alan gazed at the bowl of minestrone soup with trepidation. He preferred chicken noodle soup, but his grandma had been out of chicken so she decided the next best thing would be minestrone.

"Come on Alan, if you want to get better you'd better eat your lunch while it's still hot." Tin-Tin gripped Alan's hand in hers and made him take hold of the spoon.

Alan sniffled as he felt his nose begin to run and he dropped his spoon in favor of grabbing a couple tissues to sneeze into rather than to sneeze into Tin-Tin's face. Tin-Tin exhaled loudly as she grabbed the spoon and dipped it into the minestrone soup before lifting the spoon to lightly blow on the soup to cool the hot liquid. When Alan discarded the balled up tissues into his partially filled trash receptacle he crossed his arms with a pout to match even the most temperamental of toddlers.

"Come on Alan. It's time for you to eat." Tin-Tin lifted the spoon up to Alan's mouth but Alan however turned his head away like a child that was a picky eater. Tin-Tin followed Alan's movements and slipped the broth into Alan's mouth when he opened his mouth to protest eating the despised flavor of soup.

Alan swallowed what was in his mouth but he did it while choking down the gross soup. After swallowing the broth, Alan released a cough and pouted immediately after when he saw Tin-Tin doing a repeat of what she'd previously done. Alan didn't want to eat minestrone soup, it was the devil as far as he was concerned.

"Come on Alan, it won't kill you to eat this soup. If you're lucky, maybe you'll feel better tomorrow." Tin-Tin forced the spoon between Alan's lips and she watched satisfied as Alan swallowed another spoonful of the soup. She knew minestrone wasn't Alan's preferred soup flavor – he was a sucker for chicken noodle soup as opposed to any other flavor. But he'd have no choice but to take what he could get.

"Fine, I'll eat it…but only if you'll be a doll and feed it to me. Pretty please?" Alan pulled the puppy eyes on Tin-Tin and she felt her resolve crumble. Nobody could say no to Alan's puppy eyes, and Alan knew that tidbit of information, that's why he pulled it so often.

"Okay, fine. But no and I mean no complaints about the flavor." Tin-Tin held a finger up and pointed at Alan before she made Alan scoot over in his bed so she could sit rather than perch. "Okay, open up."

Alan listened to Tin-Tin and opened his mouth to accept the spoonful of soup which was followed by oyster crackers.

"Is that better?" Tin-Tin inquired as Alan seemed to be able to eat the soup without grimacing.

"Much. Thanks Tin." Alan smiled his thanks at his friend and accepted another spoonful of soup. "When I get to feeling better, name your price and I'll do it for you."

"Can I trust you to give me a mani-pedi without tickling my toes?" Tin-Tin raised an eyebrow in Alan's direction and watched Alan roll his eyes before nodding.

"Yes, you have my sworn oath, I will not tickle your toes. So is that what you want then as payment for being my nurse?" Alan inquired as he finished the last of the soup.

"Yeah, you did a spectacular job the last time…of course you tickled my toes last time and I almost kicked you in the face." Tin-Tin shot a false glare at Alan and watched him blush slightly.

"Well you were wiggling your toes and you know I often have tickle wars with my brothers…you should have known not to tempt me." Alan grinned with a wink.

"Okay, now that I know about your tickle fetish…I'll keep that in mind to hold perfectly still during my next mani-pedi you give me." Tin-Tin shook her head with a wry grin.

… … … … … …

Alan walked through the house, his slippers on and blanket draped over his shoulders. He was beginning to feel better, still had a pretty gross sounding cough (one that still was bringing up crap from his lungs). He'd already been home for almost two weeks trying to get over this respiratory and sinus infection…thankfully Virgil sent a doctor's note to the school informing them that Alan was on antibiotics (unfortunately not the oral kind). Alan had to work to not blush like crazy when each morning Virgil came to his bedroom with a hypodermic needle to give him a shot right in the butt. Thankfully Virgil didn't require him to drop trou completely and only asked that he lower the hem a little bit.

"Hey Alan, what are you doing up?" Gordon came around the corner, towel draped over his shoulders…his swim trunks dripping water – obviously Gordon had just come from the pool.

"Going to go see Tin-Tin. She wanted me to come hang out with her today." Alan murmured. He totally didn't want to be caught giving Tin-Tin a foot massage and painting her toe nails, but he'd promised Tin-Tin a mani-pedi and a Tracy never broke his promise.

"Okay, well try not to pass your cold off to her…none of us want to come down with what you and your sicky self brought home from school." Gordon ruffled Alan's hair while discreetly checking his brother for a fever.

"Trust me Gordo, I think Tin-Tin is immune. She never catches anything I or Fermat manage to bring home from the states." Alan stepped away from his immediate older brother and continued on to Tin-Tin's bedroom.

"I know, but she could still pass it off to one of us." Gordon called after Alan before going off in an opposite direction than Alan.

When Alan reached Tin-Tin's bedroom he found her laying on her bed flipping through a magazine. Knocking timidly, Alan smiled when Tin-Tin waved him into her bedroom. They'd be keeping her door open. Their folks requested that there always be an open door policy if Tin-Tin was going into any of the guy's room or vise versa.

"Hey Alan, what are doing out of bed?" Tin-Tin dog-eared one of her pages before turning her undivided attention to Alan.

"I'm bored, so I figured we could go ahead with the mani-pedi. If you're still up for it that is." Alan rolled his eyes around as he looked at Tin-Tin's bedroom. It wasn't a typical girl's room. No pink and frills, stuffed animals, makeup or thousands of shoes. It seemed more beach themed than anything. Tin-Tin had a two person hammock hanging in the corner of her room. Her dresser, bed and a desk. When Alan was younger and he'd occasionally spend the night in Tin-Tin's family's wing of the Tracy villa, his bed was always the hammock.

"Sure, if you're feeling up for it though." Tin-Tin didn't want to make Alan do anything if he wasn't feeling up to par.

"Yeah, why not…because when I get to feeling better dad is probably going to send me off to school again. So unless you want to wait until spring break for your mani-pedi, I'd say that we'd best go ahead and do it now." Alan stepped into Tin-Tin's bedroom and sat on her bed – facing his friend. "So do you have all the stuff we'll need for your mani-pedi?"

"Yeah." Tin-Tin jumped off her bed and strode over to her closet before retrieving a small plastic suitcase. "Here we go."

"Okay, so how did you want to do this?" Alan opened Tin-Tin's spa kit as she called it and started riffling through it. He may be a boy, but he knew how to color coordinate and he was trying to pick a color of nail polish for Tin-Tin to wear.

"I think I want to do a soak with my fizzy salts before you do anything yet." Tin-Tin leaned over and pulled out one of her hibiscus scented foot soak fizzy balls and smiled as she took a whiff. "Mmm, I love the smell of hibiscus."

Alan shrugged his shoulders. He couldn't smell anything right now, thus the shrug. He liked the smell of hibiscus too, but it'd do no good to agree with Tin-Tin when he couldn't exactly smell anything right at the moment. Instead Alan retrieved a bowl that Tin-Tin kept in her closet for her little foot soaks that she liked to do and went into her personal bathroom to fill it with warm water. When Alan returned with the bowl of water he found Tin-Tin in the process of trying to remove an old nail polish color she had on.

"Nuh-uh…I was the one who'd be giving you a mani-pedi…I can't do that if you start doing everything yourself." Alan walked over and set the bowl down on top of a towel that he'd draped over his shoulder when he'd been in Tin-Tin's bathroom earlier. "Hand over the cotton ball and acetone remover."

Tin-Tin rolled her eyes before doing just what Alan told her to do. Alan sat at the foot of Tin-Tin's bed and grabbed both of Tin-Tin's legs before pulling them into his lap.

"No kicking me if I tickle you. Just know I am not doing it on purpose." Alan started off by grabbing one of Tin-Tin's pinky toes and starting to remove the polish. Tin-Tin squirmed because yes it did tickle, but then she was just ticklish on the bottoms of her feet.

When Alan finished removing Tin-Tin's polish from her toenails, he had the girl soak her feet while he worked on removing the polish from Tin-Tin's fingernails.

"So, why were you so gung-ho over doing my mani-pedi today? Last time you acted like it was a chore." Tin-Tin inquired since she had nothing better to do.

"Well, for one I really was bored and …I wanted to hang out. We rarely get to do that just the two of us, so I figured…why not?" Alan glanced up at Tin-Tin shyly.

"Aw, how sweet." Tin-Tin gushed before she reached over with her free hand to pinch one of Alan's cheeks.

"Hey, shut up alright." Alan glared at Tin-Tin before he smiled at the girl with a blush. He truly did enjoy spending time with Tin-Tin. Since the Hood incident, the two of them quit arguing as much and started being more understanding of each other.

"Okay…" Silence lapsed for a while as Alan waited for the water that Tin-Tin was soaking her feet in to quit fizzing. When the bubbles went away, Alan had Tin-Tin bring one of her feet up and out of the water and he dried that particular foot with a spare towel he'd snagged from the bathroom. Reaching into Tin-Tin's spa kit, Alan retrieved lotion and a couple emery boards before setting to work on massaging Tin-Tin's feet. Alan couldn't help but to chuckle at the look of awe on Tin-Tin's face as she practically melted into the foot massage.

"So, this is the color I picked out…what do you think?" Alan held up a peach toned nail polish color and he held it up to Tin-Tin's toes so Tin-Tin could try to envision the color being on her toes.

"I love it." Tin-Tin agreed and she relaxed back into her bed as Alan bent over her feet to concentrate on painting her toenails. Alan drugged his thumbnail along the edge to scrape some of the excess nail polish from her skin before wiping it on his pant leg of his sweatpants. When he'd finished with the color, he retrieved the sealer polish to apply to the drying nail polish on Tin-Tin's toes.

"I'm glad you like it." Alan smiled as he continued to focus on painting Tin-Tin's toenails.

Several more minutes passed before Alan was finished painting Tin-Tin's toenails. When he finished he crossed Tin-Tin's feet at the ankles before laying them to the side and grabbing one of her hands to begin working on Tin-Tin's fingernails. The two of them talked about nothing and everything – even going so far as to discuss and swap flirting tips with each other. Tin-Tin hinted at liking someone, but Alan hadn't figured out if maybe she had a crush on one of his brothers or Fermat. He didn't think that she'd ever have a crush on him, they were enemies for the longest time and now friends.

Tin-Tin learned that Alan did have a crush on someone, but she figured that Alan had a crush on a girl he met through one of the school chatrooms which had a conjoined database with a girl's school in the local area…either that or he had a crush on Lady P…but then he made that one obvious with constantly telling her how nice she looked. Sometimes he'd talk about how nice Lady P looked in a particular outfit whenever he Tin-Tin and Fermat were together or he'd ogle at Lady P when she'd lounge by the pool in a tankini and sarong.

When Alan finished with the mani-pedi – both teens were shocked to find that they'd spent pretty much the entire day together. Alan had stopped by at noon and it was already six o'clock in the evening. Alan helped Tin-Tin straighten up her bedroom, dumping out the foot soak and putting away Tin-Tin spa kit before he started to leave.

"Alan wait!" Alan paused and turned around when Tin-Tin called after him.

"What's up?" Alan wanted to know what Tin-Tin wanted. He was beginning to feel tired and he wanted to go to bed.

"Here." Tin-Tin leaned up close and kissed Alan on the cheek before pulling away. "You're a great guy…thanks so much for treating me today. I had a blast."

Alan smiled at Tin-Tin as he touched his cheek before nodding dumbly. Walking away, Alan returned to his bedroom, feeling like he was walking on clouds.


End file.
